MST Letter: Urgent Action to help 450 families facing eviction

Dear comrades and Friends

First of all, on behalf of the MST and the 450 families of Quilombo Campo Grande Camp, we thank all solidarity letters received against the eviction of our camp.

Unfortunatelly, during a hearing held on Wednesday afternoon, Nov. 7, Brazilian judge Walter Zwicker Esbaille Junior ordered the eviction of 450 families who live in the area of the old Ariadnópolis mill owned by a bankrupt debtor in the city of Campo do Meio, state of Minas Gerais, Brazil.

He established a seven-day deadline to have his order executed. The decision means destroying 1,200 hectares (nearly 3,000 acres) of corn, beans, manioc, and pumpkin crops, 40 hectares (roughly 100 acres) of agroecological gardens, and 520 hectares (more than 1,200 acres) of coffee crops. Not only that, hundreds of homes, corrals, and miles and miles of fences will be torn down. The court order will destroy everything people have built in two decades of hard work. READ MORE.

ABOUT THE CASE: Who is Justice serving?

By ordering the removal of families who live in the Quilombo Campo Grande camp, the Brazilian state hurts long-standing human rights resolutions.

In 1998, 450 Landless families occupied an area of the Ariadnópolis mill, in the city of Campo do Meio, southern Minas Gerais, Brazil. Back then, the area was owned by Companhia Agropecuária Irmãos Azevedo (CAPIA), which owes R$300 million (roughly US$80 million), went bankrupt, and faced closure two years before the families occupied the land in 1996.

Time went by and the four thousand hectares (roughly ten thousand acres) where there used to be nothing but monoculture of sugar cane started to come to life and allow two thousand people to work and earn a living.READ MORE ON THE HISTORY OF CAMPO GRANDE.

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